As soon as it was heard that Joseph Smith and a body of followers had gone armed into Daviess County to inquire about their friends, a committee of Ray County citizens came up to Far West to inquire into the reasons of such a movement. A meeting was called and a committee appointed to give the committee from Ray all the information required.
Joseph's movements were watched very closely. On the occasion of his returning from a visit to a company of saints camped on the forks of Grand River, between thirty and forty miles from Far West, he and the small company of brethren with him were chased some distance by a body of armed men, but they escaped.
It was reported that Joseph would not submit to civil process, that he defied the law. A charge had been trumped up in Daviess County against him, for going there in arms to inquire about the Gallatin election troubles, and on the morning of the 13th of August the sheriff of Daviess County and Judge Morin called upon Joseph and informed him that they had a writ for his arrest. Joseph expressed his willingness to be tried, but as the people of Daviess County were very much—though unjustly—exasperated at him, he wished to be tried in his own county, and the laws gave him that right. Upon this insistence the sheriff refused to serve the warrant, and he said he would see Judge King about it. Joseph agreed to remain at home until his return; which he did. On his return the sheriff informed the Prophet that he was out of his jurisdiction.
The excitement which had been aroused, however, could not be abated. On the contrary, it spread into surrounding counties and its intensity increased.
CHAPTER XXXV.
BOGGS IN ACTION—DEFENSE CONSTRUED INTO OFFENSE.
This excitement in Daviess and surrounding counties, and the Indian difficulties which were threatening about the same time, induced Governor Boggs [A] to send an order to Gen. David R. Atchison, third division of Missouri militia, ordering him to raise within the limits of his district, four hundred mounted men, armed and equipped as infantry or riflemen, to be held in readiness to quell disturbances arising either from the excitement concerning the "Mormon" troubles, or Indian outbreaks. This order was dated August 30, 1838.
[Footnote A: This was Lilburn W. Boggs who, during the troubles in Jackson County, was lieutenant-governor of the State, and who not only quietly looked on and saw the saints driven from their homes by mob violence, but secretly aided and encouraged the mob in its atrocities.]
In order to show his willingness to honor the law, Joseph, under the counsel of General Atchison, under whom and General Doniphan, Joseph and Sidney Rigdon were studying law, volunteered to be tried for going armed into Daviess County before the circuit judge, Austin A. King. The judge was notified of Joseph's action, and the place selected for trial was the house of a Brother Littlefield, about fifteen miles north of Far West, where the little village of Winston is now located. But as the plaintiff, Wm. P. Peniston, failed to put in an appearance, the trial was postponed until the next day, to take place at the house of a Mr. Raglin, one of the chief mobocrats. The result of the trial was that Joseph and Lyman Wight were bound over in a five hundred dollar bond to appear at the next session of the district court; though Judge King afterwards said nothing worthy of bonds had been proven against them.